X-Files Monster-of-the-Week Episodes

The conspiracy was the point. These are the ones people actually rewatch.

Entries
10
Category
TV
Updated
  1. A sputtering generator and a single bare bulb in a dark old-growth forest, a cloud of tiny glowing green specks hovering at the edge of the light.

    10. Darkness Falls

    The X-Files · 1994

    Loggers vanish in Washington's old-growth forest, and the culprit is a swarm of glowing green bugs that comes out after dark. Chris Carter wrote it; Joe Napolitano directed. The close-ups were filmed mites. The lesson is to bring more generator fuel than you think you need.

  2. A shuttered sideshow trailer in a Florida trailer park, a rusty carnival banner frame, a bed of nails and a jar of live crickets on the step.

    09. Humbug

    The X-Files · 1995

    Darin Morgan's first script and the show's first outright comedy: murders in a Gibsonton, Florida town of retired sideshow performers, with real ones like Jim Rose and The Enigma on screen. Kim Manners directed. Some of the crew found the jokes unsettling. That was the idea.

  3. A revolver lying on a hospital conference table beside a single brass bullet and a cup of water, harsh fluorescent light overhead.

    08. Pusher

    The X-Files · 1996

    Robert Patrick Modell can talk people into anything, including stepping in front of a truck. Vince Gilligan wrote it, Rob Bowman directed, and it ends in a game of Russian roulette that Fox's standards people did not want on TV. Gilligan has said he still can't believe it aired.

  4. A dusty old station wagon speeding down an empty Nevada highway toward a distant ocean horizon, the rear windows smeared.

    07. Drive

    The X-Files · 1998

    Bryan Cranston's head will explode unless Mulder keeps driving west. Vince Gilligan wrote it, Rob Bowman directed, and Cranston made a hostage-taker so sympathetic that Gilligan later used this episode to sell AMC on him as Walter White. A very long audition.

  5. A snowbound Arctic research station at night, a row of empty specimen jars on a lab bench, one holding a single wriggling black worm.

    06. Ice

    The X-Files · 1993

    Morgan and Wong do The Thing at an Alaskan outpost: parasitic worms, a sealed-off team, everyone checking everyone's neck. Felicity Huffman and Xander Berkeley guest; David Nutter directed. It was meant as a cheap bottle episode and went over budget. Paranoia is expensive.

  6. A narrow air vent with its grate bent open, a long yellowish smear on the metal, and a newspaper-and-bile nest glimpsed inside.

    05. Squeeze

    The X-Files · 1993

    The first monster of the week: Eugene Victor Tooms, a Baltimore mutant who stretches through vents, eats livers and hibernates for 30 years. Morgan and Wong wrote it; Harry Longstreet's shoot came up short and it was partly reshot. Doug Hutchison never blinks. Check the chimney.

  7. A pizza box lying open on a dusty motel bed beside a wooden stake and a pair of plastic vampire fangs, an RV parked outside the window.

    04. Bad Blood

    The X-Files · 1998

    Vince Gilligan's Rashomon with fangs: Mulder and Scully give Skinner competing accounts of the night Mulder staked a pizza delivery kid. Luke Wilson is the sheriff, Cliff Bole directed, and the structure came from The Dick Van Dyke Show. Both versions are correct about the other.

  8. A typewriter on a desk beside a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray, a cheap rubber alien costume draped over a chair, and a slice of cherry pie.

    03. Jose Chung's From Outer Space

    The X-Files · 1996

    Darin Morgan's last script of the original run: an alien abduction retold by unreliable witnesses to novelist Charles Nelson Reilly. Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek play Men in Black. Rob Bowman directed a parody of the mythology better than most actual mythology episodes.

  9. An old white Cadillac parked in front of a dark, crumbling Pennsylvania farmhouse at dusk, a battered record player on the porch.

    02. Home

    The X-Files · 1996

    Glen Morgan and James Wong's Peacock family, directed by Kim Manners. The first episode with a viewer discretion warning, and Fox reran it exactly once, on Halloween 1999. Johnny Mathis would not let them use his recording of Wonderful! Wonderful! Reasonable.

  10. A tidy insurance salesman's desk with a stack of life insurance forms, a cold cup of coffee and a small porcelain doll lying face down beside a deck of tarot cards.

    01. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

    The X-Files · 1995

    Peter Boyle plays an insurance salesman who can see exactly how everyone will die, which does nothing for his mood. Darin Morgan wrote it, David Nutter directed, and Morgan and Boyle both won Emmys. A comedy about depression that is also, mostly, about depression.

Honorable mentions

  • A bank lobby wall clock above a waterbed-shaped puddle on the floor, a calendar page stuck on the same day and a scattering of deposit slips.

    Monday

    The X-Files · 1999

    Vince Gilligan and John Shiban trap Mulder and Scully in a day that ends with a bank blowing up, every time. Only the robber's girlfriend, Carrie Hamilton, remembers. Kim Manners directed. The writers cite a Twilight Zone, not Groundhog Day. Everyone says Groundhog Day anyway.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A cracked clay burial urn in a museum basement steam tunnel, a ring of small glowing eyes in the darkness around it.

    Teso Dos Bichos

    The X-Files · 1996

    An Ecuadorian burial urn reaches a museum and a jaguar spirit starts killing people, largely by way of house cats. John Shiban wrote it; Kim Manners directed and later made Teso Dos Bichos Survivor shirts for the crew. The cats would not attack on cue. They were cats.

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